Seneste anmeldelser af frontman12

My Experience

It's just amazing to reflect on. Rebellion - the same Rebellion that developed Rogue Warrior, with its 29 Metascore - developed this gem. Strange Brigade might best be described as a co-op third-person action/puzzle game. You (and up to three friends) pick a character and attempt to stop the threat presented by the ancient evil queen Seteki.

Most of the game consists of players alternating between horde-like encounters and puzzle encounters, typically with a boss fight thrown in during each of the game's nine levels. Although a few of the horde-like encounters ran a bit too long, the game's pacing is extremely well done. As the game alternates between high-octane, tense encounters, and more calming and cerebral moments, it's easy to sit down and play the game contentedly for long stretches of time without feeling any fatigue with the proceedings.

I had a great time with the game's combat. I used Gracie, who specialized in shotguns, and it was easy to get into a rhythm while taking down various mummies and zombies. The highest tier shotgun shoots relatively quickly, but still must be pumped between rounds. Therefore, it's best to make each shot count. Strange Brigade forces players to be entirely present, paying close attention to the environment. Each arena is littered with traps that must be shot to be activated, and use of these traps is necessary to obtain success. Players are forced into a violent ballet, enticing enemy groups this way and that to maximize the damage of each trap activation. In addition, some traps can only be activated a few times and may have a delay between uses, so you'll need to pay close attention to usage. However, I still had a few irritations. One particular mini-boss enemy charges at the players, and it sometimes seems to be able to maintain charging momentum while changing directions, and will charge around obstacles such as pillars, even if it initially appears to be heading straight for them. The rules for this enemy could appear to be a little inconsistent. Another irritation was the existence of the dynamite-throwing enemies on raised ledges. It could be difficult to deal with these enemies as Gracie (wielding a short range shotgun), and they were incredibly deadly (at least on the hard difficulty). Sometimes they would make an appearance during a boss fight, and this was especially brutal. The game does often spawn explosive barrels beside these enemies for easy elimination, but certain fights will actually contain multiple waves of them.

I also enjoyed the game's puzzles, for the most part. They were not so easy as to be completely trivial, and not so difficult as to break my momentum in moving through the game. Often, puzzle solutions required players to be especially attentive to the environment, finding solutions through windows in the environment, etc. If there is one thing that can be said of the development team's abilities, it is that they can carefully construct an environment and motivate players to notice it. I especially loved the Pipe Dream-esque puzzles, in which players created a route through straight and curved pipes from one node to another. The worst puzzle type that I found were the 9x9 grids that asked players to have all pieces flipped in the correct direction. Shooting different squares in the grid would flip different combinations of pieces. We did not have the patience to figure out which squares were flipped as we changed where we shot, and actually solved none of the puzzles in the game with this design.

Although the puzzles were generally easy, I still did not appreciate the design decision to tie amulet power unlocks to relic location. Outside of your weapon and your grenades, you will also have an amulet ability. Each player seems to have access to different abilities. I started with one that was useful, but perhaps a bit limited. However, my co-op partner did not like his beginning ability (he played as Frank). Unfortunately, to unlock additional amulet abilities, players must acquire "sets" of relics. Therefore, my co-op partner was stuck with his underwhelming ability until we were able to complete a set of relics, which took us a few levels. As you kill enemies, you can collect their souls to charge your amulet, and this is an interesting aspect of the combat. However, if your amulet power is unexciting and/or ineffective, this element is absent. I would prefer that players buy amulet powers, much like upgraded weapons are purchased.

As well as having intuitive puzzles and very engaging combat, the game features a charming, comic book aesthetic and an amusing narrator with an English accent. The narrator hams it up admirably, devising silly alliterative exclamations to couple with enemy entrances. In addition, I like the character designs and environments. You'll find yourself traversing near a pirate ship, a pyramid, through various ruins, and even in the afterlife realm.

As soon as we finished the game, I looked up the DLC content and I believe we're planning to check it out. I also couldn't wait to play the game through again as a different character, and I feel that this is about the highest praise to offer this sort of title. I can't vouch for the single-player experience, but I can recommend playing this game through in co-op without hesitation. Eradicate those spine-chilling spooks!

My Experience

The Council was a wild ride. As many other reviewers have noted, it resembles a Telltale or Life is Strange-type game, but with RPG elements added in. You play a man named Louis who visits the secret island of a rich man named Mortimer. You ostensibly visit to locate your mother, but when you arrive you find that much more is at stake.

When you begin, you'll pick a class (Occultist, Diplomat, Detective). This class gives you proficiency in a certain starting group of skills. You can still take skills from other classes, but you'll have to do that as you progress through the game. I wanted to play as a purely scientific/skeptic Detective and played the first half of the game in this manner. However, certain plot points made this a futile roleplaying exercise.

Due to the way the skill system works (in conversation and in passing), I think I should've simply put one point in every skill, and perhaps get Politics, Occultism, Logic, and Psychology up to a higher level. During my playthrough, however, I neglected certain skills that didn't make sense with the way I wanted to roleplay Louis. You can use your skills to help you with conversations and puzzles. You can use any skill that you have at least one level in; however, if the difficulty of a challenge exceeds your facility with a skill, you'll need to use "effort points" to make up the difference. You start the game with a certain number of effort points already, and you have a maximum you can accumulate. You can regain effort points through consuming "royal jelly" (found scattered around the mansion) or by ending a chapter of the game. You can increase your maximum capacity through locating "pieces of amber" (also scattered about the mansion).

The vast majority of the game, I was teetering between having 0-4 effort points available. I typically used them as soon as I'd accumulated them. The royal jelly consumable is quite plentiful, but consuming too many in a single day gives you some sort of sickness (I never figured out what this does). To cure the sickness, you can use golden elixir (another consumable). Therefore, more difficult challenges in the game would see my Louis just pounding these consumables: royal jelly, royal jelly, golden elixir, royal jelly, royal jelly, golden elixir, etc. This felt as silly as it sounds, but I wanted to do well in the game's skill challenges, and I couldn't really figure out a better way to approach them. There are two other consumables, devil's thorn and Carmelite water. Devil's thorn reveals the immunities and vulnerabilies of whoever you're chatting with, and Carmelite water makes your next skill use cost 0 effort, regardless of difficulty relative to your skill level. Therefore, with Carmelite water, you can succeed at level 8 skill challenges with only 1 level of the associated skill. It's great - I pounded those bad boys too.

Walking around this mansion so much, you'd hope that the audiovisual design would be stellar, and it mostly is. The mansion is incredibly opulent and beautiful, and the creaks of the wood while traversing the halls and taps while walking over tile add a great deal to the player's immersion. Although the environments are gorgeous, I can't really say the same for the character designs. Developer Big Bad Wolf has a talent for making their characters look grotesque, especially Sir Holm (the fella with the white makeup you see in the promotional materials). These guys make old age look like a horror film. Who knows? Perhaps it is. The voice acting is very good, with the exception of Louis (in my opinion). The only people I know who speak English with a strong American accent and then transition to flawless French are unbearably pretentious. I probably would've preferred that Louis just speak English in a French accent - this way I could understand him, but the transition when he spoke French names and titles wouldn't be so jarring. In addition, the voice actress for Louis' mother sounded much younger than the character appeared in-game.

As I mentioned earlier, my decision to be scientific/skeptic Detective wasn't particularly supported by the game's plot. Even so, I would've appreciated more opportunities to deviate from the path laid out before me. You always seem to get an opportunity to turn against a character, but these opportunities are usually more "grand." Therefore, you can choose not to side with a character, but may find yourself completing errands for them beforehand regardless.

I would've appreciated if the game had a bit more relationship-building. More often than not, I found myself engaged with tiresome and exhausting puzzles. The worst offenders were doing bible research (analyzing pictures of apostles and correlating verse and chapter numbers), finding a specific lance (poring through pictures and research to locate the correct one among some 10 or so others), and "organizing the guests" (which takes place in something of a dream sequence). I found myself groaning through the entirety of these sections.

Despite my issues with some audiovisual and gameplay pieces, I did enjoy a good portion of my time with the game. I liked interacting with the different characters and found many of them to be convincing portrayals. The central conflict in the game is an intriguing one, and I found myself invested in the weight of the decisions being made. I've found myself thinking about the game for a number of days after I finished. The key question, as I see it, is whether freedom on a large scale justifies tyranny on a small scale. The game ended quite poorly for my Louis - but looking back, I'm still not sure that I'd do anything differently. It's a strange feeling, but somewhat unique among games I've played. My biggest regret is actually killing Mortimer's bird Waldo (somewhat by accident).

If you enjoy other narrative adventure titles and think it would be interesting for conversations to change based on your character's skills, I think I can recommend The Council. Especially if you generally have more of a tolerance for puzzles than I do.

My Experience

I had a great time with Zamb!, although I probably don't know how to pronounce that title correctly.

First off, I love it when cooperative games give each player a unique role. Cye has powers that he can use during a level, such as lightning orbs and healing circles, and he predominantly serves as a melee brawler. Chrome, on the other hand, can equip and drop up to three types of towers at a time (the majority of which attack enemies), but only has a ranged weapon.

Outside of each level, towers and powers can be upgraded using the points earned when characters level up. Points can be refunded at any time, so you can re-prioritize if need be. Each level has a few challenges - typically, one of these will involve a certain type of "combo." Combos are activated, I believe, when a few enemies are killed after taking damage from both a turret and a power. Different types of combos result from different combinations of turrets and powers. These challenges and the ability to respec at-will encourage players to experiment. However, I was partial to the cooldown tower (which slows and damages enemies) and the laser sniper (which has good range and penetrates through enemy groups).

Certain aspects of the game (outside of the gameplay itself) have a low-budget feel, but that's hardly surprising with such a low-costed game ($2.99!?). I actually think the developers could safely kick the price up a few more dollars. The game features some odd-looking comic book-style panels between levels, which look like they might've emerged from MS Paint. They aren't awful, but character proportions sometimes appear strange.

The other big issue is with some of the achievements and challenges in-game. After completing all of the 15 levels, my co-op partner and I wanted to go after some challenges and achievements. Unfortunately, there are many issues here. Oddly enough, I acquired the achievement for buying all upgrades for a single power ("I've Got The Power!) although I never played with Cye. In addition, there was a challenge in one level for completion without moving a tower once it is placed. We completed the level once, and although I was sure that I hadn't moved a tower, the challenge was listed as incomplete on the score screen. We played it again and I didn't drop any towers at all (and actually popped the "I'm a Big Boy now!" achievement for completing a level without dropping towers) but still the challenge was listed as incomplete. We decided not to pursue these extra challenges if they were bugged.

Other issues include:

• As you take down enemies, you build up a "boost" bar. You can activate your boost to increase the amount of damage you deal. This boost bar depletes extremely quickly, to the point where it doesn't often feel like it's worth messing with.
  
  
• On a few occasions we had difficulty activating our "Zamb!" ability. This ability must be activated by both players at a reactor, and will wipe the screen of enemies. However, if it isn't triggering, you're just standing there hitting X (at least on an XBOX 360 controller) while both you and the reactor take damage.

Although I had a couple issues here and there with meter-based powers and bugs with challenges and achievements, I enjoyed almost every second with Zamb!. If you wanted some replayability, you might even decide to go back through the levels with the other character. A quick tip: levels don't begin until you begin hacking a reactor - therefore, you can usually scrounge up enough resources through destroying red crates to start with a tower on the map.

My Experience

When I first saw Fortix, I said to myself: "Hey, Jezzball with a theme!" However, it's both more and less than its inspiration.

Instead of balls, however, you're interrupted by dragons. And Instead of clicking and having a line drawn straight across the play field (as in Jezzball), you create the size of the captured areas yourself by moving your character from a top-down perspective. Therefore, you can make the areas you capture as large or small as you'd like.

In some ways, this makes the game kind of easy. You can slowly work your way across an area (limited somewhat by the time limit for each level), capturing small pieces one at a time, until you capture a massive tract of land. However, this mechanic also allows the game to have terrain-based challenges. Your character moves tremendously slowly through marsh-type land, and some levels also contain walls that are impassible.

I loved the power-ups that your character has access to in-game (by capturing specific areas when they appear). Two of the most powerful are one that freezes time for a moment, and one that markedly increases your character's movement speed for a time. I loved plotting strategies for capturing large pieces of land, especially when capture is followed by such a triumphant sound effect and large corresponding increase to your score total.

The only other negative aspect of the game is that it's quite old at this point. Therefore, when I tried to launch it on my modern dual-monitor setup it made my screens go all wonky.

However, if you remember liking Jezzball (the Microsoft Entertainment Pack 4 classic), you'll like Fortix. I'm excited to try the sequel!

My Experience

Imagine you're playing a real-time tactics game with a party of two characters, and you really goof it up. You walk on a spike trap and get one of your characters impaled, while the other, at the same moment, gets hit by an enormous fireball. Although this scenario would normally be "game over," in Iron Danger you can "rewind" and try things a little differently. Therein lies the appeal of the game.

You're often up against a number of difficult enemies at any one time, but the ability to try and re-try various tactics until you're successful allows you to survive these encounters. I loved maximizing my efficiency, while learning the ins and outs of each enemy and its attacks. I especially loved the few levels in which Kipuna controls the automaton, an extremely powerful "golem" with quick and powerful attacks.

If the combat wasn't fun enough by itself, the game has a scavenging element that I very much enjoy. You can not only find oil and fuel barrels to throw out and intensify the damage of Kipuna's fire attacks, but you can find healing herbs, grenades of various types, and mushrooms that instantly recharge the abilities of the character that consumes them. When Lemichen is partnered with you, he can use found resources to create explosive, poison, and enraging (causing enemies to attack each other) arrows as well.

The only issues I had with the game were:

• It could get a little easy, especially once Kipuna gains the heal and enrage abilities. The heal allows you to complete encounters in a sloppy fashion (healing afterwards) and makes the healing herbs irrelevant. Enrage is extremely powerful, especially when coupled with Kipuna's ability to recharge your abilities.
  
• At one point, the exit would not appear after I killed a boss. I think this was because the boss died to a fellow enemy (due to enrage) instead of by my hand. I had to replay a 20 minute section of the game.
  
• The game had trouble loading my save at one point. I had to load a different save and then, once in the game proper, load my current save again.
  
• I could not get the "Ring of Fire!" achievement to unlock after performing the required action. This really wasn't a big deal, but it soured me on attempting to 100% the game.

Lastly, I actually enjoyed the story and became somewhat fond of the characters, even though they weren't tremendously interesting. The ending of the game sets up a compelling sequel, which will be an instant buy for me. This was one of my favorite games from the hellish year of 2020.

My Experience

My co-op partner and I tend to pick up these OnSkull escape room games almost automatically now (close to release), so it had been a while since I'd visited the store page on Steam. I must say I was surprised to see how negatively this one has been received, but I think I understand why. Personally, I felt that Escape First 2 was better than Curious Cases (which was better received on Steam), OnSkull's last offering.

The biggest issue, in my opinion, is with the Psycho Circus level. Although the Psycho Circus level was actually the best one in the first game in this series, it is the worst one in this game and unfortunately, players will likely see it first. On the level select screen, the Psycho Circus level is the first one to the left. The puzzles are just un-intuitive and not well-explained. On two occasions, we had to consult a guide to figure out what the game was asking of us (the chair puzzle, and gleaning a code from the dolls in the case). This level was miserable, and had me questioning whether I ever wanted to play another OnSkull offering.

The next level, the Escape Room Factory, is a bit better, despite the existence of a switch-box puzzle that makes no sense. We only had to consult a guide once for single puzzle, which was an improvement from our experience in Psycho Circus. In general, I feel that my partner and I are a good metric for whether a puzzle is logical. Not only have we played every OnSkull escape room game (Tales of Escape, Escape First, The Experiment, & Curious Cases), but we've played escape room-type games from other developers as well (Last Will, We Were Here, We Were Here Too, etc.). I also liked the aesthetic of the second room.

The final room, The Torture Chamber, is the best of the three. I liked its medieval setting, and the puzzles that involved shields, swords, and a battle map. Were we able to piece together all of the puzzles without consulting guides, and it therefore felt more satisfying than the previous levels.

It took somewhere around 45 minutes on average per room - and for two dollars per room, this seemed worthwhile to us. Although I wouldn't say that Escape First 2 is better than Tales of Escape or the Experiment, it's likely OnSkull's next best offering.

My Experience

I appreciate that this is Eugene's debut effort, but I think that perhaps a bit more streamlining and polishing would be required before I could recommend the game.

First off, it takes quite a long time to get around the island. You'll often encounter save points, but a fast travel system (even if it only let you return to town) would be very welcome. This movement speed was especially egregious when it came to rebuilding the bridge - trudging back and forth to the lumber yard for four separate trips at a snail's pace to grab these piles of wood.

Secondly, I found that there just wasn't a lot of customization in the deck-building aspect of the game. Most of the items represent a strict upgrade, and so there really isn't much of an opportunity to create a "build." Just buy and equip the most expensive items you can, and your deck will be better - there isn't too much of a reason to dig through the individual cards provided by each item. A more compelling way to organize a system like this can be found in Card Hunter, where you might want to keep a lower-level item because of the specific card or cards it adds to your deck and how they synergize with the other cards you possess.

Lastly, after completing the game I reloaded my last save to try and find a few more of the "boss" enemies. However, the rocks that I had destroyed with dynamite had miraculously returned to block my path again. I was able to sort of "glitch" through by jumping and pushing into the geometry on the side of the rocks, but this represents a bug that may need squashing.

And clearly, some players were able to complete the puzzle in the mine (looking at the achievement statistics). However, I never figured it out. I matched the symbols to the ones on the wall plates, and even tried turning the dials until all of them matched each other (the achievement corresponding to solving this puzzle was called "Match 3"), but nothing took.

Despite my qualms with the game, I did generally enjoy the battles themselves. However, they just weren't enough to carry the experience. Even so, Wildemist Isle is a promising debut, and I look forward to the next project by Silver Swoop Games.

This blurb is taken from my 2024 Games of the Year list that I posted on GiantBomb.com. HeistGeist was #2.

I’ve always loved asymmetric co-op games featuring a hacker and an agent on the ground. In these games (Clandestine or Hacktag, for example), you’ll often need to support each other and leapfrog to make progress. The hacker may need to open a door for the agent so the latter can clear a server room of hostiles, so the hacker can then cross an air gap. In Heistgeist you can play both roles, bouncing between two distinct but equally compelling deckbuilding games representing the roles of each operative. There are areas that your ground agent won’t be able to access unless you hack proficiently, and these routes are elegantly represented on each level’s heist map. The combat deck revolves around stringing combos together - cards have a type, A, B, or C, and will gain extra effects if a specific card type was played beforehand. The hacking deck, on the other hand, revolves more around analyzing a server map and targeting specific nodes so that the ones around them are weakened as well. As you progress through the game you’ll unlock new cards for each deck, and you’ll be able to further enhance your strategies. Although I can’t say I found the story tremendously compelling (A shadowrunner named Alexandra is burned on a mission and is trying to get to the bottom of what happened), I liked the game’s visual style and deckbuilding more than enough to compensate.

This blurb is taken from my 2024 Games of the Year list that I posted on GiantBomb.com. Sumerian Six was #6.

In a time of Nazi salutes at Presidential podiums, developer Artificer is here to remind you that Nazis are indeed bad. Although these particular Nazis are more interested in a superpowered “Geiststoff” material than in dismantling the federal government, they’ll still need to be taught a lesson. Although many of the abilities on offer in this tactical stealth game are strongly reminiscent of those in Mimimi’s titles, there are a few new additions that are especially fun. My favorite was the “Human Bomb” of the exiled scientist Rosa - she can attach it to an enemy soldier and then remotely detonate it later, perhaps as that particular soldier wanders by others on its patrol or stops to deliver a report to a nearby officer. I also liked the way that the game encourages the player to comprehensively explore each level, by sprinkling around cases containing ability upgrades for your characters. However, what keeps Sumerian Six from truly reaching the heights of Mimimi’s titles is its insistence that you approach encounters in certain ways. There was often only one way to actually enter a given area - and completing encounters in the game often felt more like solving a puzzle with a single solution instead of devising your own creative approach.

This blurb is taken from my 2024 Games of the Year list that I posted on GiantBomb.com. Steamworld Heist II was #8.

The first Steamworld Heist was definitely a top 10 game for me in the year of its release, so I had high hopes for the sequel. Heist 2 certainly ups the ante, adding a large seafaring overworld (with combat) and an ingenious job system. I liked sailing around, trying to acquire all of the stars in each zone (you’re rewarded with a special cog that provides a bonus to all of your crew members), decimating enemy ships with as many torpedoes as I could fit on my vessel. As for the job system, the “job” of a crewmate is determined by the weapon they have equipped, and each job has an associated skill tree. Upon switching weapons with that crewmate, you can spend “cogs” to equip abilities from the skill tree associated with the previous weapon types you’ve had equipped. Crewmates have personal abilities that are unique to them, which create powerful synergies with abilities in certain job skill trees. While you can of course find higher-powered weapons of each type, you can also purchase upgrades for personal abilities and job skills (that affect each crewmate that has that skill equipped). Utility items, such as armor, healing kits, and accessories, round out each character’s loadout. My main issue with the game was actually the incessant alarms, which often begin as soon as you deploy at an enemy base or on an enemy ship, creating incessant reinforcements. I know that developer Thunderful wants to ramp up the challenge, but sometimes I just want to take things slowly and at my own pace.